Thursday, May 19, 2005

Intermission

I remember the first time I watched the Terminator how terrified I was at the idea that there was something out there that just wouldn't die. You shoot it, it keeps on coming. You crash a tanker filled with diesel fuel into it, it strolls out of the wreckage and flames. You crush it on some assembly line, its little red eyes flash back on. You somehow manage to spank your way though finals, and now it wants you to write-on to law review. At least that's what I thought as I sat crammed into room 401 with everyone else who wants to play writing-competition roulette this weekend.

The week away has been kind of nice. I went to the gym for the first time in a few weeks; and felt as out of place as an old hooker on her first day at her new job as an insurance claims adjustor. I am very, very weak. I looked at myself in the mirror and could see in my pale, yellowish skin and in the dried and caked soy sauce under my fingernails all the signs of someone who's lived in a dank apartment on take-out financed by selling my books back. Needless to say, I am an ugly sight and I'll spare you more details.

Anyway, there's something horror-movieish about the way school just won't die, and as I look over my summer calendar, I realize that between preparing a resume for fall's on-campus interviews and stopping by financial aid for work-study checks, there's just enough going on to keep up the suspense. But I guess that makes sense; if this is a ninety minute movie, we're only thirty minutes in. There's no way you'd kill off your villain in the first thirty minutes --we'd all want our ticket money back.

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.